‘SussFessions’: We spoke to the new Confessions page shaking up Sussex

If you've been living under a rock and have never heard of SussFessions (famously and formally known as 'GossipSussex') it's an confession site where students can anonymously confess their darkest secrets, take a sly dig at their house mates, confess their love for their Uni crush or more commonly, turn their biggest university tragedies into something for the rest of Sussex to laugh at.

The Sussex Tab spoke exclusively to the ever so anonymous people behind SussFessions, who already have over 2,000 eagerly following their Facebook page, to see what it's really like to run the biggest confession page at Sussex Uni.

How did you come up with the idea?

We originally came up with the idea when the founding members of the admin team were procrastinating from a major deadline due in less than 24 hours. It had been an idea we’d thought of before, because Sussex lacked a confessions page in the same vein as some of the massive ones like leedfess and oxfess. So Gossip Sussex was conceived, with what we hoped was a fun spin (adding our own comments and replies to some confessions as ‘gossip Sussex’) on the established confessions page setup

How many people do you have onboard?

The page was set up by two friends who ran both the Facebook page and Instagram page until the start of this term when we took on two new admins to help spread the workload as the page grows and the number of confessions increase.

How do you keep yourselves anonymous – how many people actually know who is behind it?

Haha, good question. In short, more people than was originally planned know who runs the page… secrets and alcohol are never a good mix. We try to keep a level of anonymity but don’t resign ourselves to upholding it like a law. Saying that though, for the people who read this feature and know who runs the page: we appreciate your ongoing upkeep of our not so well kept secret.

What kind of confessions are you looking for?

We look for a good mix, ones that show the entertaining everyday things that happen in people’s lives always do well. Saying that though, some of our best performing posts have been ones that are really honest and tender and bring people together in the comments section to support whoever posted it. We’d also like to take the opportunity on this question to say that confessions that are cries for help or suggest harm may befall someone won’t be posted, and people should refer to the pinned post on the page for appropriate support with such issues.

Why the rebrand from GossipSussex?

We felt the original idea was fun and original, but we had a few comments from people who didn’t realise it was a play on the gossip girl concept, and some who didn’t realise it was a confessions page. So for the influx of new freshers looking for a good confessions page to follow we took the plunge to rebrand to something that screams “I’m a confessions page for the University of Sussex”.

Whats the funniest confession you’ve had so far? How do you know what is appropriate to post?

That’s like asking a mother to name a favourite child, we could never single one out. But sometimes you see a confession and just know it will hit right and perform well with lots of engagement. It’s difficult to know what’s appropriate sometimes, we’re just students after all, and sometimes we do make mistakes with gauging what’s appropriate.

Have there been any confessions which were just pure scandal?

Oh of course, we could never post some of the scandals we’ve had submitted to us about what certain students, members of staff, and SU officers have gotten up to. Some people really have no shame in what they hope to make public knowledge. Unfortunately posting such confessions would do more harm than good for the page so we decide to quietly delete them and not cause a scandal by publishing them, as much as we’d love to sit and watch the fallout of doing that.

What do you see for the future of SussFess?

In an ideal world it’ll keep growing and eventually be well known as part of the Sussex experience. Obviously as admins come and go we’d want to let it be run by people who are committed to keeping the spirit of a uni confessions page going. We’d never dream of letting it grow and gain massive popularity only to let the page just die when we graduate *cough* teh univursity of susex *cough*.

Why should people like the page?

It’s entertaining to see what other people get up to and confess about to be honest, everyone’s nosey in that respect and looking for a bit of enjoyment to distract them from the stress of uni work. On a deeper note it’s also a community in a way, as soppy as it sounds it’s honestly so heartwarming to see people connect and help one another in the comments section of a post that does something like ask where to make some new friends, or where to go for help with a certain problem.

Finally…Blaire or Serena? Chuck or Nate? ?

Being honest, I’ve never seen Gossip Girl so I don’t have an answer. Saying that though, after doing these answers one of the other admins has since insisted ‘deffo Blair and Chuck’.

If you have juicy confession you're dying to share, you can here .